Espresso Tales

than solicitors did, which is why they were advocates in the first place. I replied that I very much doubted this and to prove the point I asked him whether he could name, from the top of his head, a certain section of a statute to do with the sale of goods. He looked at me in a very rude way, I thought, and then he had the gall to tell me that the legislation to which I was referring had been repealed the previous year, and did I know that? It was not an amicable exchange.

“The client, though, was a very agreeable man, and it was a mark of his status in that part of Perthshire that just as we were finishing lunch at his house the telephone went and it was none other than the Duke of Atholl! Now deceased, sadly.

“The Duke was a very strong bridge player – international 316 The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VII – Bridge at Blair Atholl standard, in fact – and they were just about to have a game of bridge up at Blair Atholl and they needed a fourth player. The Duke wondered whether my host would care to play. Unfortunately he could not, as he had a further engagement that afternoon, but then he turned to me and asked me whether I would like to go up in his stead. Now, my bridge is not very strong, but I had played a bit with the Braids Bridge Club and of course it was a great honour to be invited to play with the Duke, and so I readily agreed.

“I went up to Blair Atholl more or less straightaway. A servant let me into the house and showed me up to the drawing room, where I met the Duke and two others, a man and a woman who were staying with him as his guests – people from London whose names I did not catch, but who seemed quite civil, for Londoners.

Then we all sat down at the bridge table, with me partnering the Duke. He opened the bidding on that first hand with one heart, and I rapidly took him up to four hearts on the strength of my single ace. Unfortunately, we did not make it, the Duke very quietly saying that he thought it was perhaps a slightly bad split.

“The game continued, and I must say that I enjoyed it immensely, even if the Duke and I were three rubbers down at the end. He did not seem to mind this very much, and was a very considerate host. We had a cup of tea after the bridge and we talked for about half an hour before the Duke had to attend to some other matter and I took my leave.

“ ‘Do have a wander round, Dunbarton,’ ” the Duke said very kindly. “ ‘Take a walk up the brae if you wish.’ ”

“I decided to take him up on this invitation since it was such a pleasant late afternoon. There was a path which led up a small hill and I followed this, admiring the views of the Perthshire countryside. Then the most remarkable thing happened. I turned a corner and there before me, charging through the heather, was a group of armed men, all wearing kilts and carrying infantry rifles. I stopped in my tracks – the men had clearly not seen me

– and then I rapidly turned round and ran back to the castle.

Beating on the door, I demanded of the servant who came to answer that I had to see His Grace immediately, on a matter of the utmost urgency.

The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VIII – I Play the Duke . . .

317

“I was taken to the drawing room again, where I found the Duke sitting with his two other guests, engaged in conversation.

“‘Your Grace!’ I shouted. ‘Call the police immediately! There’s a group of armed men making their way down the hillside!’

“The Duke did not seem at all surprised. In fact, he smiled.

“ ‘Oh them,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry about them. That’s my private army.’

“And then I remembered. Of course! The Duke of Atholl has the only private army allowed in the country. I should have thought about that before I panicked and raised the alarm, and so I left feeling somewhat sheepish. But the bridge had been enjoyable, and I reflected on the fact that it would probably be a long time before I would be invited to play bridge again with a duke. In fact, I never received a subsequent invitation, but I have in no sense resented that. Not in the slightest.”

97. The Ramsey Dunbarton Story:

Part VIII – I Play the Duke of Plaza-Toro

“From real dukes,” read Ramsey Dunbarton, “to stage dukes.

And to that most colourful character, the Duke of Plaza-Toro, whom I had the particular honour to play at the Church Hill Theatre. Looking back on my life, which has been an eventful one by any standards, I might be tempted to say that that episode is probably one of the great saliences of my personal history.

“At the risk of sounding boastful, I have always had a rather fine voice. As a boy I sang in the local church choir, and had I auditioned for one of the great Edinburgh choirs, the choir of St Mary’s Episcopal Cathedral, for example, I would probably have got in. But I did not, and so never sang in Palmerston Place. I did, however, join the Savoy when I was at university and was in the chorus of several productions. I am quite certain that I would have had principal roles were it not for the fact that the various producers who did those productions did not like me for some reason. It is very wrong when producers allow 318 The Ramsey Dunbarton Story: Part VIII – I Play the Duke . . .

personal preferences to dictate casting. It happens all the time.

People pick their girlfriends and boyfriends to sing the choice parts; it’s never a question of merit. And I gather that you find exactly the same thing in the West End and on Broadway.

“After the Savoy, I joined the Bohemians, and appeared in a number of their productions, often at the King’s Theatre, again in the chorus. There was The Merry Widow, which I always enjoyed very much, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Porgy and Bess, to name just a few. In Porgy, I was an understudy for one of the principals, but was not called upon to sing. I must admit that it is very difficult not to wish ill on a principal in those circumstances, but I shall never forget the story told me by one of the Bohemians about how, some time ago, he had been an understudy for somebody in Cav and Pag, and had wished that the other singer would fall under a bus. Which he did. I’m not sure which number the bus was, but I think that it might even have been the 23, the bus which goes up Morningside Road. Fortunately, he survived, although one of his legs was broken, and of course the understudy felt so bad about it that he could barely bring himself to sing the part.

“After a break from the Bohemians, I joined the Morningside Grand Opera, an amateur group which put on a range of performances at the Church Hill Theatre each year. They were ambitious and even did Wagner’s